ashamed to detain your Lordships for one single moment in arguing
about it. Quite early after my coming to the India Office, pressure
was put on me to repeal the Regulation of 1818, under which men are
now being summarily detained without trial and without charge,
and without intention to try or to charge. That, of course, is a
tremendous power to place in the hands of an Executive Government. But
I said to myself then, and I say now, that I decline to take out of
the hands of the Government of India any weapon that they have got, in
circumstances so formidable, so obscure, and so impenetrable as are
the circumstances that surround British Government in India.

There are two paths of folly in these matters. One is to regard all
Indian matters, Indian procedure and Indian policy, as if it were
Great Britain or Ireland, and to insist that all the robes and apparel
that suit Great Britain or Ireland must necessarily suit India. The
other is to think that all you have got to do is what I see suggested,
to my amazement, in English print--to blow a certain number of men
from guns, and then your business will be done. Either of these paths
of folly leads to as great disaster as the other. I would like to
say this about the Summary Jurisdiction Bill--I have no illusions
whatever. I do not ignore, and I do not believe that Lord Lansdowne
opposite, or anyone else can ignore, the frightful risks involved in
transferring in any form or degree what should be the ordinary power
under the law, to arbitrary personal discretion. I am alive, too, to
the temptation under summary procedure of various kinds, to the danger
of mistaking a headstrong exercise of force for energy. Again, I do
not for an instant forget, and I hope those who so loudly applaud
legislation of this kind do not forget, the tremendous price that you
pay for all operations of this sort in the reaction and the excitement
that they provoke. If there is a man who knows all these drawbacks